Digital BW, The Print

Peter,

> 
> I'm mainly a traditional darkroom worker, although recently I've had a
> lot of fun with a C86 and the MIS EZ inks. ...

> I can make a sharper print with better local contrast digitally
> than I can in the darkroom, and we're talking 4x5 negatives enlarged to
> 8x10.

Unsharp masking and the new "Smart Sharpen" in PS CS2 are amazing and are
also often overdone at first.  I have several prints that I really need to
re-do due to my early over-enthusiasm for the unsharp masking.

> The silver gelatin prints have a slightly better surface look,

Have you tried spraying the Premium Semimatte with PremierArt Print Shield?
To me, that takes care of what I think of as the major problems.  Also, dry
mounting them seems to add a bit of texture due to the underlying matte
board.  Both of these steps bring my display prints a bit closer to the
air-dried, glossy silver print look that I used to consider the nicest look.

> they're "smoother" in even-toned light areas, but that probably has to
> do with my sharpening technique.

If you find that the C86 EZ highlight smoothness is not up to what you'd
like and is due to ink dots, the UT2 and UT7 inksets have more dilute light
inks in their light ink carts and are thus smoother.  Also, for the
ultimate, one can put UT-FS-Y in the UT2 and UT7 yellow positions.  This
position is used by the sepia ink in the default arrangement.  I don't find
any visible difference with this very light ink for most papers, but there
are a few that do benefit from it if viewed very close up.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com